Home owners associations and ponds?

[MitchM]

That's crazy.

 

[addy1]

One more reason we love our rural, non hoa land here.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

HOA here are all diffrent prices and most are over $100 a month but you still have to pay taxes. In a condo those fees would cover things like snow removal, landscaping in commom areas, maintaing a pool, etc

We looked at a house one time that had $175 per month HOA fee and only allowed you as the home owner to have two pets. They also didn't allow pick up trucks to be parked in the driveway. That certainly wouldn't work for us as we have more than two pets and at the time had a pick up truck. Just rediculous in my opinion.

The way I see it if I am the owner of the house I don't need some association to tell me what I can and can't do on my own property. If I wanted that then I would rent a house instead of owning one.

 

[Coinr]

I appreciate all of the comments. To clarify, if we looked at a home and we're thinking of making an offer, at that point our realtor would get a copy of the hoa rules. That seems to be the norm, at least around here. No one in their right mind would make an offer without knowing the rules you will have to live with.

We currently live in a suburb just a few miles north of Detroit. This is an older neighborhood with most of the houses being built in the 40's or 50's. We'd like to move about 15 miles north of here. Most of the homes in this area are substantially newer and have hoa's.

In regards to hoa's there are pros and cons. In my current home (all residential, not rural)I have to put up with things like trailers, boats, and mobile homes parked in the driveway, people that don't trim there bushes (to the point you can barely see the front of the house), leave their cars on jacks for weeks while they work on them, paint their house bright green or purple, rarely cut their lawn and in general let their property get to the point that it makes the whole neighborhood look bad. Part of this is just the reality of what my neighborhood is becoming. And yes you can complain to the city, but it has to be really bad for them to step in.
With a hoa you shouldn't have this. I'm still not a fan of them, but can see why people like them. So I guess, my hope is to find a place where the hoa is reasonable. Like they will let me put in a pond as long as it is done nice and I put a nice fence around my property, but they won't tell me I can only paint my front door hunter green.

Just was wondering if anyone had dealt with the pond / hoa thing.

 

[sissy]

I don;t have hoa but most here are pretty good about keeping there properties up but my taxes are pretty low compared to when i lived in NJ .11 thousand a year on 1 acre 2400 sq. ft house here 3 acres 2440 sq. ft house and 1000 dollars a year in taxes .The developer that owns all the empty lots maintains the entrance and behind me and in front of me are farms .I have to add my taxes together because i never combined the 3 lots I bought and the 1 acre with guest house is 47 dollars a year and the 1 acre lot on the other side is 32 dollars a year and has just a shed on it .Had a friend who bought in a hoa up near Washington but in VA and when she bought they found the people had put in a pond after there inspection of the property and she had already closed on the place and they made her take it out .Her mom passed away right after the closing and she went to settle everything and they gave her 2 warning letters and then a fine for not doing it and also for leaving her moving truck in the driveway .She resold the place at a loss and pond was removed ,it was just a small preformed .She now happily lives in a non hoa .I guess there are good and bad every where you just need to know where the bad are

 

[tbendl]

Coinr,
I would check google earth view and look at the neighborhood. If there are no restrictions you will usually at least find a pool in someones backyard. If no one has a pool, you may have a problem. Just a thought.